Blake Cole, with Cole Construction, paints the front of the Rising Building Monday on the corner of North Columbus and West Main Streets. / Jess Lanning/Eagle-Gazette

Josh Biter, above, and Blake Cole, with Cole Construction, paint the front of the Rising Building Monday on the corner of North Columbus and West Main Streets. / Jess Lanning/Eagle-Gazette

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LANCASTER — Downtown is becoming quite the busy place with several ongoing or planned construction and renovation projects.

There are 10 active renovation and improvement projects happening in downtown Lancaster, three of which are some of the largest buildings in the area — the Rising, Columbian and Chase buildings.

With all of the improvements to the business landscape downtown, Kate Ervin, of Destination Downtown Lancaster, said she is trying to keep up the momentum and get even more vacant buildings into use.

“Every thriving downtown is a mix of government and private business, and we are hoping to be able to leverage this public investment in a historic building to bring additional private investment, whether it is legal professional office space or the retail and amenities supported by downtown workers and visitors,” Ervin said.

Ervin said preparing historic, vacant buildings for use is not an easy or quick task, noting the problematic Mithoff building.

However, across from the Mithoff is the Rising building, where a lot of restoration is taking place.

For more than a month, construction workers could be seen inside and outside the Rising building at the corner of Main and Columbus streets in Lancaster. Dave Jones, a certified public accountant who owns the building and runs an accounting firm inside, said the renovation was strategic and the facade work was necessary.

“I think the downtown is definitely going to move forward here,” said Dan Singer, Historic Lancaster Commission member and downtown property owner. “Especially with the Columbian and some of the other things happening, like the new jail, realizing the jail is two or three years out. I’m hoping that’s going to just kind of create some synergy for the downtown.”

As for the Rising building, Jones is eliminating retail space in the building to make way for more office suites, which is where he sees the market going.

“I felt there was more demand and there are better rental values in office space than retail,” Jones said.

The renovation will free up two office suites in the building, and Jones said he has an idea of who his renters will be — local attorneys.

Jones expects attorneys will be the “prime market” for the space because of its close proximity to the Columbian. However, he said it also would be an ideal spot for any business in need of a physical presence downtown.

Jones’ accounting firm will move from the Columbus Street entrance to the Main Street side of the building. Annie’s Restaurant customers will then use the Columbus Street entrance.

“Annie’s will remain where it is, but it will be a smaller space than what it was — about half its size,” Jones said.

He plans to move his accounting firm by December.

Jones also invested in upkeep of the building — which was built in 1868 — and had the bricks remortared and repainted, as the old facade would leak.

“This was obviously a major project,” he added. “We’ve been trying to figure out what’s been causing the problem for a while.”

Jones said there is a lot of costly upkeep in dealing with historic buildings, which is why some downtown properties remain vacant.

Meeting new building codes can be problematic in old properties. Jones said it’s common in historic buildings for their restoration to be more costly then tearing it down and constructing something new. Jones bought the Rising building in 1991 because most of the interior work was done by Sears in 1952.

“They did the major renovations,” Jones said. “That’s what really saved this building, in my opinion.”

While Jones is focusing on office space, Ervin said there are a lot of opportunities for retail.

“I think that a vibrant downtown has a mix of uses, and I see tremendous potential for increasing the retail offerings along Columbus Street near Main Street,” she said in an email. “While we work on marketing what we currently have, we also need to bring a critical mass of vacant storefronts back online as retail in order to make downtown a complete shopping destination.”

David Dryden co-owns the Chase building at 123 S. Broad St. with David Harcum and is on the Special Improvement District board. He said he is happy to see all the downtown construction work.

“Each one adds another stone to the mountain,” Dryden said. “There’s no monster mover, if you will. Even somebody fixing their facade, which is relatively small dollars, that still helps. It brings another rock to the mountain.”